


you have no idea what you’re doing, but you’re pretty sure you’re doing it wrong

by possessedradios



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (because of course), Dysfunctional Relationships, Jacobi calls Wolf 359 a "fancy mood ring", M/M, No one but Klein knows how to relationships, Non-graphic description of sex, POV Second Person, That's my favorite line y'all don't have to read it anymore now. You know the best part.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 18:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12870819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possessedradios/pseuds/possessedradios
Summary: “I kissed Major Kepler,” you say and need a few seconds to realize that it sounds triumphant.Klein stares at you. “What the fuck, Jacobi.”You laugh a little. Yeah. What the fuck?





	you have no idea what you’re doing, but you’re pretty sure you’re doing it wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I’m Mel and I do this thing where I interpret every character in 37242 different ways in order to not feel like I’m writing them OOC.

It’s you who makes the first step, you who pushes Kepler against the wall, and then you’re kissing him and it’s almost easy, with the sound of the explosion still ringing in your ears and the adrenaline still rushing through your vains. He kisses back and tastes a little like whisky, unsurprisingly, and then he shoves you away and leaves you with a split lip that makes your own mouth taste like copper and salt. He looks at you like one would look at a newly discovered insect, interested but unimpressed and vaguely nauseated, and you feel very, very alive. “Mr. Jacobi,” he says, and the ‘Mr.’ somehow makes it worse, “Mr. Jacobi,” he says, “if you ever do this again, I will shoot you dead where you stand,” and you don’t even know what he’s referring to. The shoving? The kiss? His voice is calm and collected, you know he means it, and you feel so, so alive. It’s a little disgusting.

Once you’re back at the hotel, Kepler locks the door of your room and fucks you against a wall as if there wasn’t a bed standing only a few feet away. The casualness with which it happens would be disturbing if you weren’t so into it. He doesn’t kiss you, not a single time.

Then: Getting back, mission debriefing, sitting in Maxwell’s lab for a few hours, and suddenly you realize you feel a little less alive, a little more guilty.

“I slept with Kepler,” you say.

She doesn’t direct her attention away from the screen, just keeps typing. You look at her intently, stare in her face, but there’s nothing. No surprise, nothing, nothing at all. After a few seconds, she answers, fingers still flying over the keyboard. “Terrific.” Deadpan. She doesn’t think it’s terrific.

“Any … additional thoughts?”

“Not really,” she says. “You’re an idiot, Daniel, but that’s really nothing new.”

“... Yeah.”

Silence, for a little while. Maxwell reaches for her energy drink, realizes it’s empty and frowns. You wonder how long she’s been awake.

Then: 

“Was it good?”

“Alana.” 

You don’t like the question. 

“Was it?”

You don’t like the question because you don’t know, actually. It made you feel alive, sure, but you’re never entirely sure how much you enjoy being alive.

“I- Yeah. … I mean. I guess?” 

“Terrific.”

“Alana.”

She sighs and finally looks up, and her eyes are soft and forgiving and maybe - maybe - understanding. Everyone else, you’d hate for it. But not her. Something in your chest feels a little lighter, but it hurts.

“I’m not exactly surprised,” she says, “but it’s still an awful idea. You know that - you’re an idiot, but not stupid.”

“It won’t happen again,” you say and fear and hope that it’s true.

She doesn’t react to those words. Instead, “Have you told Klein?”

You blink once, and then you feel very, very small, because you haven’t, mostly because you kinda just forgot that he exists, that he’s a thing, and you wonder just how fucking broken you really are.

“Oh damn it, Daniel. Go tell him.”

You tell him, later, but you don’t know how to do it and you fuck up. Klein smiles when he sees you, and then he grins, and then he kisses you, and then he’s hugging you very, very tightly, you know he’s always a little worried when you’re away on a mission, and then you’re in bed and Klein is on top of you, calling you ‘Daniel’ and whispering things in your ear that are so sweet that you think you’ll choke on them, or on the bitter taste on your tongue and in your throat, and you don’t understand how Klein can’t taste it while he kisses you. Kisses you, your chin, your throat, your shoulders, feather-light, he’s so, so- So… 

_gentle_

Yeah. That. As if there was any need for that.

You don’t get it. The concept of gentleness as a whole.

It’s good that he turned the lights off, because Kepler’s hands have left bruises on your skin.

You think about Kepler for a few seconds and shudder underneath Klein’s hands, and then you think about Maxwell while he plants another soft

_(no; gentle)_

kiss on your skin.

“I kissed Major Kepler,” you say a few minutes later, voice a little strained, gripping the bed sheets.  
“I kissed Major Kepler,” you say while Klein has two fingers inside of you.  
“I kissed Major Kepler,” you say and need a few seconds to realize that it sounds triumphant.

Klein stops moving his fingers. It’s dark, but you can feel his eyes on you. He’s staring at you.

Then:

“What the fuck, Jacobi?”

You laugh a little. Yeah. What the fuck?

You’re ten minutes into a discussion which mostly consists of Klein asking you repeatedly what in the world made you think _this_ was an appropriate time to confess this when you tell him Kepler fucked you. 

What the fuck, Jacobi.

One hour in and the discussion is a fight. You know you have no right to be, but you try to get mad, try to be angry at Klein with ferocious desperation, and you almost succeed, but then he starts crying, suddenly, out of the blue, and you feel like you’ve been hit by Kepler all over again, only that a split lip and the taste of blood in your mouth made you feel alive. This hurts just the same, but only makes you feel guilty.

“Fuck,” you breathe, then slowly step closer and somehow manage to remind yourself to do the decent thing and ask Klein if it’s okay if you hug him. He nods and you do, and you fall asleep with Klein pressed tightly against your chest and your arms slung around him and his shaky breathing in your ear. Instead of sleeping you think about the feeling of Kepler’s hands on your skin against your throat around your heart.

You tell Maxwell how it went, and she rolls her eyes and there’s an electronic buzzing that might or might not sound like a condescending snort of an A.I. that might or might not be active in her lab.

What the fuck, Jacobi. Seriously.

“It won’t happen again,” you say, but you’re a fucking liar.

At least you keep telling Klein that it happened, every time, you try to convince yourself that you deserve some credit for this; for being honest with Klein and for comforting him, and-

You don’t know how love is supposed to work, but you’re pretty sure you’re doing it wrong.

Klein puts up with your bullshit, until he doesn’t anymore. Until you tell him again, only that this time, you’re drunk on _icy booze_ because you’re a fucking idiot and it’s too easy to just be angry when you’re drunk, and the next morning, you don’t remember exactly what you told him, but he’s gone and doesn’t take any of your calls. 

You tell yourself it doesn’t matter until it’s almost true, and Kepler does the rest, because he stays, he’s there, always there, like the sun you’re orbiting around, and it’s easy to not think about other people when he’s kissing you. 

(After missions, high on adrenaline and the smell of blood and death and destruction, in hotel rooms, on the bed, against the wall, in the bathroom, Kepler’s hands on your body, his breath against your neck, his voice, dark and heavy with hardly suppressed violence that seems to surround him at all times, whispering words into your ear. Never sweet ones. He never calls you Daniel. 

He’s never gentle. 

(It’s fine. You wouldn’t get it anyway.))

For a while, you try to figure out what exactly this is, you try to stick a name to it. 

Maxwell is the only one who knows what’s going on because of course she does, but she never comments on it, not once, and you don’t talk about it anymore either, Maxwell is- She feels- too important for this, almost, you’d rather sit by her side in silence, or talking about movies; you’d rather go home with her and pretend to be angry at her when she beats you at Mario Kart, you’d rather order pizza with her. You’d rather do all the things that will never belong to whatever you share with Kepler.

By the time you wish you had talked to Maxwell about it, she’s dead.  
By the time you wish you had been the person Klein deserved, Klein doesn’t care anymore because he’s an empty shell.

You actually quite like this mission, when you think about it, you like being stuck in space with a lot of enemies. You like that everything’s so goddamn broken, because your life seems almost whole if you compare it with this whole fucking situation; with a useless crapshoot of an A.I. and classical music coming from a star which acts as if it’s a fancy mood ring; if you compare it with literal aliens and oh, now command’s here too, awesome, and-

Kepler. Kepler’s still there. Still alive. Still a person. A little more scared than before, you think, you hope, and with only one hand and a lot less control, but still there. Still a constant. Still the fucking sun. You look at him and almost manage to hate him, and you think back, you think about how for a while, you tried to figure out what exactly this was, how you tried to stick a name to it. Back then, you had given up at some point, had forced yourself not to think about it anymore. Now you do, you think about it, and you manage to be honest to yourself - you try to convince yourself that you can give yourself some credit for that, for being honest in front of yourself, for admitting that you never found a name for it because it never actually _was_ anything. It never was anything more tangible than “I’m sleeping with my boss because I have a fuckton of issues and never managed to see the same therapist more than two or three times”. 

The realization and the acceptance of it feel almost freeing.

(And then Cutter tells his evil minion to lock you away together with Lovelace, and-

“Sir, Jacobi has shown _exemplary_ skill and dedication throughout the”

-and your mouth tastes like copper and salt and you wish you were as good at crying as Klein used to be.)

**Author's Note:**

> I’m @possessed-radios on tumblr and my podcast sideblog is @shortwaveattentionspan; come scream at me. With me. Whatever.


End file.
